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Green approach to grief reduces the blues

By Halle Stockton

PSU College of Communications

While casually pulling back on the leashes restraining her three dogs, Katie Nurmi recounted the route she normally takes on sunny days with Edward, Maya and Gracie.

"We'll walk up to Colonnade and then over to Petco, so I can get them each a cookie," she said. "They just love it."

Moments later, Nurmi spoke in nearly the same tone about her father's recent move to an assisted living home and his need for a covert scotch before meals. She visits him at least once a day now.

"I'm doing OK with it. His eyes usually light up when I visit," she said. "I don't think he knows it might be a permanent stay."

After only a bit of time with Nurmi, one would expect her to have the weight of the world on her shoulders. She was married to a man named Brian Price when she was 28. He passed on two years later. A botched surgery led to an eventual claim for disability. The surgeon left a sponge in her. And her beloved St. Bernard dog had to be euthanized after he snapped and mauled her brother's friend.

These traumatic experiences are garbage, Nurmi said - garbage that she intends to recycle.

"I have this garbage recycling philosophy," Nurmi said. "Basically, if you take the garbage you have dealt with and use it to help others wade through their garbage, then it's not just garbage anymore."

With the combination of her philosophy and her love for animals, Nurmi went into pet loss counseling for more than eight years. Most of the counseling was done through an online chatroom; however, she also put together and copyrighted a workbook for children dealing with pet loss.

She expanded and tailored the workbook for a group of children in Virginia whose animals - about 35 of them - were poisoned. The children used the workbooks to come to terms with their losses, Nurmi said.

"Children often need to be guided on how to even feel sad," she said.

Those children and many others Nurmi has spoken to about pet loss need validation.

"Every griever needs some sort of validation that the pain they are feeling is OK to feel," she added.

Nurmi tries to give that to others because she didn't receive it when she was dealing with her husband's loss.

"No one wanted anything to do with me," she said. "No one wanted to believe that they could lose their husband at 30."

So Nurmi has spent her time volunteering at battered women's shelters, rescue shelters for animals and even supervises a local Girl Scout troupe of about 11 girls.

"My father always said life wasn't worth living if you don't do something, just anything, for others," she added.

In between her time spent on others, she indulges by just lounging around or taking an afternoon stroll with her three companions at home.

"They're just so smart and with such personality," she said of her dogs. "They know what it's like to really just love. They help me go through my garbage -- only figuratively. But that's such a gift. So I turn around and at least try to help others with their own issues."